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Wednesday, 8 May 2013

PCJ's Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror Spoiler Review

So
far, Doctor Who Series 7 Part 2 has been going really well, although
with a few bumps and scrapes here and there. The 6th episode this
"segment" entitled The Crimson Horror is written by regular writer Mark Gattis, who was most recently responsible for the popular Cold War episode.

This
episode to me, was a bit of a let-down. When I saw the trailer and the
synopsis, I knew it wasn't going to be top-notch, but I quite liked the
overall premise behind it. I liked the idea of the Paternoster gang
turning up again, as I thoroughly enjoyed them in The Snowmen, and I
liked the idea of them meeting Clara #3. I also kept an open mind due to
the writer. Mark Gattis is far from the most consistent writer when it
comes to quality, but he has done some good episodes so I felt rather
hopeful about this one.

Strax has a more vital role

Even before getting close to the end of the episode,
the balance between funny and serious was quite poorly done with the two
alternating and thereby knocking each other out of the water. The out
of character "shrug off" of The Doctor when Ada kills Mr Sweet was
obviously intended for humour too. Though with lines like "Do you know
what these are? The wrong hands." the combination of humour and being
really scary work well. Having said that, focusing on Strax alone, I
felt he was far better used in this episode as he went from just being
the group clown to actually saving the day. Twice.

Experimented upon

One of the possible causes for the need for
Gatiss to include funny content in this episode would be that this
episode is actually quite dark as opposed to a few others. For example,
it had a mother experimenting on her own daughter. It had a woman
wanting to kill everyone on the planet for her own Eden. Should we
presume that these reasons are for the children of the family, so that
they do not cry too much?

The closest way Moffat can cameo

For me, one of the chief issues with this episode is
the plot-holes throughout. In the Moffat era, we're used some of the
hints and the foreshadowing being more subtle, so we look closer. Why
did Miss Gilliflower have to hide her feeding Mr Sweet from Ada when she
was blind? How did she build a spruced up metal firework in those
times? Why didn't they all burn when it ignited? Why would a parasite
want to wipe out all life? How can a single vat of poison kill the
entire world when an entire cauldron of what must be extremely an
diluted substance can only "wax"? If the poison needs to touch the body,
how would that work with just a n explosion over one city? Why not turn
it into a gas and pump it into the atmosphere? These are just a few,
where individually they all seem pedantic, but if you put them together,
you'll find a story that is under-developed.

Aka "The Hammer to the Face"

Another indication that this episode is
under-developed is the cringe-worthy reference to TomTom, that seemed
completely out of place. Doctor Who has always had a certain level of
cheesy-ness to it, but this just felt desperate where a hammer to the
face would be more subtle, even to the point that I've thought that the
kid might be something more than just an on-looker for part of an
episode who managed to scale a chimney and watch a battle, without any
of the other characters raising that point. I admit, that it was quite funny
the first time, but it got cringe-worthy on even just the 2nd re-watch.
Though if I consider it a reference to The Sontaran Stratagem/The
Poison Sky, it makes me feel better.

I
did, however, like the "Doctor-lite" aspect of the episode. Many people
do not like Doctor-lite episodes, but I do enjoy them. Let's face it,
Doctor Who has been about for almost 50 years. We've had a lot of The
Doctor. We don't need him in every second of every episode, and more
than once we have seen the effect of him that left behind on others.
This episode was a fantastic mix of this. Not too little, but enough of
him to not remove this fact. it worked really well.

Clara first sees the screen

One of the things that I'm not too certain on is the
final scene, where the kids blackmail Clara into letting them go with
her. To me, this felt as if it would have been just as suited to being a
prequel for the following episode, allowing the mystery of Clara to be
expanded upon within the actual plot of the episode as opposed what
feels like an after-thought as part of a fairly half-arsed way to set up
the following episode. Not too sure on the pictures either. Why would
there be a picture of Clara from a top-secret soviet sub?

The "boyfriend"

The actual method of introducing the kids was a
little poor too. Unless the threat was just a bluff, the dad would just
react wondering if the kids are either have learnt to use Photoshop,
drunk or high. Far from being thought out too well.

The
actual revelation itself that Clara was in Victorian London could go
one of two ways. Clara could either realise now this is not her and ask
The Doctor, or she could believe this is where she will go on a future
adventure and then, when her life is severely threatened or she is
dying, she will recall this picture. Either way, it makes the mind
wonder what it could be, even if the fact that she found out at all was a
fairly predicable thing.

The pace, however, was
brilliant. I can say, without a doubt, that I found the pacing of this
story one of the best among all of series 7. The climax of the story was
not rushed to the point of "a few button presses and done" and had some
good old action scenes and that didn't come at the cost of the rest of
the story being too fast or too slow.

"Your Nuts"

The acting of the legendary Diana Rigg was one of the enlightening factors about this episode, with her pure insanity. This combined with her real-life daughter, Rachael Stirling, acting as her on-screen daughter for the first time did make the episode feel and work special, at least in this regard.

Murray
Gold and the sound editing team have redeemed themselves in this
episode from the previous episodes this series, with new musical pieces,
such as the action piece. The flashback, with constant flashes annoyed
me on the first watch, however I grew to like it on later re-watches.

Overall, I would rate this episode 4/10.
It had promise and I did like some elements to it, but the balance
between funny and serious, it not always keeping my attention and a
couple other things let it down.

4 comments
:

Hi, I agree with the review, it made me cringe all the way through. It was awful, and like a bad panto in the supposedly funny parts. I usually love Mark Gatiss' stories, especially Night Terrors last year. The two parts of the story I loved were Diana Rigg, and Matt Smith acting as a crimson mannequin. I did actually say 'Oh No!' when that happened. Maybe the story was so silly because there are 2 dark stories coming up.

I agree - this entire episode felt like it should have been a 2-parter and most of it is condensed into a single episode. The 'flashback' sequence shows off this completely - rushing over important topics. I still for the life of me cannot remember why they are being covered in red goop or why they disposed of the bodies that failed in the river for everyone to see...

The ending was a huge annoyance also - with little to no explanation of why Clara returned home straight after - especially given the circumstance of the kids being there... and just so happen to look for pictures of Clara in different time periods... and just so happen to think that two people in the whole existence of the world cant look the same without them being the same...

This was meant to be the Doctor lite episode - however it suffers from their being too much Doctor. Despite the Doctor not being around you kept thinking 'when is the doctor going to show up... nothings happening' over and over again.

When they mentioned the 'monster' i automatically new it was the Doctor. Solely because the Doctor has to star in the episode somehow and would need an introduction that shows the horror of the 'crimson horror'

Also - the chains on the wall are not long enough to reach the door as shown in later scenes... yet a hand takes the food/stuff from the blind person under the door?

Going back to the ending line from the doctor about not explaining Clara - my family all called that line - it was so blatant and obvious that it pissed me off.

I just want the Doctor to actually focus on Clara... while the only episode to expand on Clara so far this series have been;

The bells of Saint John - Introduced to Clara, a babysitter...The rings of Ahkhatan - Shown Clara's pastJourney to the Centre of the Tardis - Figure out Clara knows nothing... then forget everything (Making the entire episode completely pointless)

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